Jonathan Luther “John” “Casey” Jones was a railroad conductor who worked for the Illinois Central Railroad. On April 30, 1900, he was killed when his passenger train, the Cannonball Express, collided with a stalled freight train at Vaughan, Mississippi, on a foggy and rainy night. He died while trying to stall the train and save the lives of his passengers, which made him a hero. He was immortalized in a popular ballad sung by his friend Wallace Saunders, an African-American engine wiper for the IC.
Lyrics
Verse 1: Come all you rounders that want to hear the story of a brave engineer.
Casey Jones was the rounder’s name, on a sixty-eight wheeler he won his fame.
Verse 2: The called Casey at half-past four, he kissed his wife at the station door.
He mounted to the cabin with the orders in his hand, and he took his farewell trip to the promised land.
Chorus: Casey Jones, mounted to his cabin,
Casey Jones, with his orders in his hand,
Casey Jones, mounted to his cabin and he took his farewell trip to the promised land.
Hear that train a comin? “Whoo-hoo!” X2
Verse 3:Casey, he rounded the corner that day, he didn’t know another train was bound that way.
The two trains collided with an awful roar and the sixty-eight wheeler, it would run no more.
Chorus
Verse 4: Now Casey Jones is lookin’ down from up above, he sees the trains and friends and family that he loved.
He wouldn’t trade the way he lived or that last ride, Casey loved to drive a train until the day he died!
Chorus and Coda
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